Gertrude B. Elion

Gertrude B. Elion was an American biochemist and pharmacologist who took part greatly in the development of pharmaceuticals that kill pathogens while leaving healthy cells unharmed. The pharmacologist is known to have once said, “I had no specific bent toward science until my grandfather died of cancer. I decided nobody should suffer that much.” With this idea in mind, Elion has been recognized to have played a large role in the development of pharmacology. Like Elion, I have gone through a hard time when my grandfather has suffered from stage 3 stomach cancer. Eventually, he got his whole stomach removed and was treated with chemo therapy. However like Elion mentioned, it is really hard to watch your relatives struggling.

Work

In 1988, Elion was awarded a Nobel Prize along with Sir James W. Black for their contribution to pharmacology. Elion’s work of the development of pharmaceuticals include Purinethol, Daraprim, Zovirax, Septra, Nelarabine, and Imuran/AZT. These pharmaceuticals serve as treatments for leukaemia, malaria, herpes, uniary and tract infections, meningitis, septicemia, cancer and, some act as immune suppression agents or anti-rejection drugs.

Also, Elion was associated as an Advisory Committee for the American Cancer Society, the Leukemia Society of America, and a number of committees for the Tropical Disease Research division of the World Health Organization, currently serving as Chairman of the Steering Committee on the Chemotherapy of Malaria. Elion (was) a member of “the American Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Transplantation Society, the American Society of Biological Chemists, the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Society of Hematology, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, and (was) a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences.”